Insanity
by Dragons Chaotica
Summary: A sane man born into an insane family, Itachi has always protected Sasuke, even from their relatives. Genetics may have gifted Itachi, the rest are not so lucky. No Romance.


Me: Hiya, all, I'm on break and I was just thinking of this. Damn psychology right?

Disclaimer: I do not own this. If you think I do then you should check the address bar "FANfiction".

PS: This, minus the described insanity, this is more or less what I believe is wrong with Sasuke, Itachi is the only sane person born to the Uchiha clan in quite a while, Sasuke shows various times that he is getting better only to fall deeper into his madness, doing more and more off the wall things for revenge and obsession. Personally I believe, not just as an excuse, that he is schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is hereditary as far as I know, take this how you will.

* * *

Itachi had a charmed life. He had a sweet mother, a strong father, and an adorable baby brother. He had a family that could populate a district, yet everybody knew each other's names. His Aunt Chiyo, ran a bakery, she spun sugar like glass and her pastries rose like a raging oceanic god, tall and powerful, larger than life. His father, Fugaku, ran the police force, a pillar of justice, a foundation of strength. Mikoto, his mother, was a wondrous cook, making feasts from crumbs and making even the foulest ingredients smell like perfume.

Itachi was young yet he was an ANBU. He was a proud Uchiha son, the first born, the hope of his clan, the prodigal son, and Sasuke's only protector.

Perhaps it was inbreeding, as Sasori suggested, in the downtime between missions. Or a piece of art, a human mind, fleeting and broken, as Deidara said, albeit with sadness, and a soft pat on his arm. Pein looked on with pity, perhaps a conspiracy. Konan simply made herself available to talk, Itachi never took her up on it.

A sad tale begins years before. In the Uchiha district, in the main house, the first time* that Itachi removed his squalling younger brother from the oven.

He had been late coming home, without much worry, a weight on his mind none-the-less, a woman with no husband, a child with no father, or a partner of some sort left behind, he had killed someone today, but he had long since stopped washing his hands raw, deciding a worse punishment would be to live with the crimson figuratively coating his ivory skin. When he entered the empty house, he smelled dinner cooking as well as heard a strange noise, Mikoto often forgot she had something cooking, leaving the oven on, the stove burning, the water gushing from the sink. Usually it was Itachi's weary duty to turn off the appliances that the whirlwind that was his mother left behind. He had wandered through the dark house to the sterile kitchen, had seen the stove burners, cold and black, as they should be, heard the silence of the sink, before he saw the roast on the counter. A quick glance at the oven told him it was on, it had an hour left. He knew a roast took about an hour, the way mother made it, so it had just started, the pre-heat cycle still ticking down.

He heard the noise again, a short shuffle, and a thud.

Itachi nearly tore the door of the stove off, trying to get inside. Where his little brother lay on a baking sheet, flailing his little arms about, knocking the potatoes and carrots around in the macabre little bed in which he nearly spent eternity. Itachi ripped his brother from the machines clutches and dashed upstairs to the bathroom, leaving the oven open, the vegetables, barely warm, rolling around the cold linoleum floor.

Sasuke was not burned. His little back was slightly red, overly warm, but not burned. The cool water of the tub and his brothers soothing hands slowly stroked away the angry red of his back and arms, long fingers gently straightening the mop of hair on his head, checking the scalp for damage. Why had the child not cried? Itachi deftly lifted the baby from the shallow water of the cold tub, and carried him carefully to a medicine cabinet, the bathroom of his room was always carefully organized, and removed a flashlight, carefully opening the baby's mouth and shone the light down the narrow throat, which was red, and scratchy, and sore looking. He remembered that Sasuke was sick, he had been crying when Itachi had left the day before, the child had not cried, because he was cried out, the child was still limp, alive, but burning inside with fever. Even the little trashing he had done seemed to have wiped the little guy out. Pulling another shirt from his drawer in his bedroom, he carefully dried the baby and wrapped him in the thick shirt, tossed his ANBU mask onto the bed and fled through the window to the hospital, as the faulty pane slammed the wood and glass back to its sill, he heard his mother come back

"_Itachi? Dear? Are you here? Have you seen Sasuke?"_

* * *

A few weeks later, Itachi was due to return to active duty, ANBU was a start and go business, a mission, a break, a mission, a break. He was in his room, cross-legged on the bed, Sasuke in his lap, giggling, Itachi himself with a faint smile playing about his lips. Long bony fingers wiggling in front of the child, who giggled and reached out, trying to catch them in his small grip, fingers already taking on the Uchiha slimness, baby fat disappearing far to soon. Itachi decided, on that day, he truly loved his brother. The small thing, a miniature version of himself, brought joy to his life. After the incident with the stove, he had become Sasuke's primary care giver, he fed, bathed, and dressed him. He tucked him in, rocked him to sleep, sang childish lullabies in a low sweet voice that Sasuke loved, the boy often falling asleep in the crib holding one of his brothers digits close, with both hands.

Itachi chuckled lowly and planted a firm kiss on the child's cheek, as he lifted him from his lap, the joy he displayed for Sasuke was not truly bone deep. When he left, Sasuke was to be left with his Mother and Father. He would be in danger, just as Itachi would be, facing down a crime boss on the Stone country.

Suddenly inspired Itachi lifted the boy to face level and planted a gentile kiss to the boy's forehead. Placing their foreheads and noses together _"Promise me, little one, that you will not be like them, you are going to grow up, and be strong, and wise, and rational, you aren't going to be like them, promise me!"_ Sasuke, unable to say much more than 'dada' simply looked at him with wide beautiful eyes, dark, dark eyes. Black, deep eyes…His mother's eyes.

* * *

Itachi had a hard life, he is a sane man born into insanity. His Aunt Chiyo is a baker, she makes wonderful cakes, she bakes anything. She is an outsider, her husband is an outsider, because he is not an Uchiha. Chiyo is an outsider because for years she has been a widow who talks to the air. Fugaku is the head of the police force, a pillar of justice, for whom nobody knows, he hates everything, he fears everyone and everything imaginable is a threat, brutality is not uncommon. Mikoto is a housewife, a socialite, a beautiful Uchiha daughter, she is a wonderful cook, no matter what's cooking, she burns most of what she makes when her son doesn't remind her she is cooking, or her husband doesn't backhand her into remembrance.

Sasuke is a young boy, not to old, and not to young, his big brother ignores him most times, his father hits him, and his mother looks at him with an indecipherable look. His big brother never lets him go in the kitchen with anybody but him.

* * *

Deidara lays next to Itachi on a bed, Sasori sits at the end. Deidara is crazy, Sasori is crazy, but they both are in different ways. Sasori feels making live people into dead puppets is alright, but he is like Sasuke, not fully gone to insanity, he cares for people, and animals, he feels like Itachi, the blood won't wash off, it is his penance for death. Deidara is the same, they feel sympathy for him, so he tells his story, they are disgusted, they don't know how Itachi is alive, they know that without him Sasuke would be dead. They share ideas, about what caused this bloodline trait that had skipped their comrade. They wonder how he survived in insanity.

"_Because to them I was insane of course."_

* * *

Itachi stumbled home, Kakashi held him up. Itachi had delivered a report to the Hokage alone, had stayed much longer than usual. He declined to comment when Kakashi asked what had happened. They parted at the gates of the Uchiha district. It is wrong here, but not for long. He knows that because of one misstep, his mother thinks her son is food. When he was a baby, Sasuke was sick, he cried and cried, Mikoto, for all of her instabilities, was a decent mother when she remembered she was one, she had been making dinner, she defrosted the roast with Sasuke in one arm, his fever had caught up with him, and he had stopped crying, and laid limp in her arms. Mikoto had panicked, so she hastily set the roast on the counter and threw Sasuke into the oven to cook so she could run to the neighbors and get help, neglecting the phone in her home. She had ran and ran as fast as she could, her baby was sick, she needed to get help. But when she knocked on the door, she had forgotten everything.

"_Hello Mizu! Sorry for swinging by so late, do you have some carrots? I plan to make a roast tonight and I'm fresh out!"_

* * *

Since that day Mikoto had seen the thing that looked like her child wandering around the house with her son. It was disgusting, her son playing with a food item. It was like having a pet chicken in the house, she could fix it, she thought, fingering the meat cleaver, but no. She decides she will wait until her son is home, and they will talk about his pet, and why it has to go. He will be upset, he even smiled when it was around, but soon, they would need to have a talk about his choice in pets.

* * *

Itachi was scarred. Sasuke's dark eyes were his mothers, and all he could see when Sasuke, with so much energy asked if his big brother would please teach him the fireball jutsu, so Father would love him. He technically said be proud of him, but Itachi knew what he meant. Sasuke wasn't like his parents, or family, or even Itachi. To his mother he was food, to his father a punching bag, to his family he was a disappointment, and to Itachi he was precious, his precious little boy, his son in all but actual birth, Itachi raised and cared for him, not the things that birthed him. Itachi was not watching the boy through rose colored glass though. He saw it. Sasuke wasn't violent like his Father, or completely unstable like his Mother, he wasn't sane like Itachi, he hovered in the middle. Sasuke was unstable, fragile, and delicate. The family had planned a coup, but Itachi would kill them first, he would stop more people like his precious Sasuke from being born, being abused. He would leave Sasuke, of course, alive. Together they could find Non-Uchiha brides, or, one of them could, or they could use science, to repopulate the clan. They could ban the inbreeding, stop the insanity from being blended into their genes. They would be free, to do whatever they wanted. Itachi wanted a family, but he didn't know how Sasuke would turn out, when this was done, he could choose.

Itachi was snapped out of his thoughts when Sasuke bounded over again, his eyes had narrowed over the years, making his face fierce, rather than innocent. He would be a great shinobi if Itachi could stop his delicate mind from breaking. He wanted to learn the Great Fireball Jutsu, and Itachi couldn't make himself do it. He showed him once, wanting to be closer, before Fugaku's abuse had corrupted the boy, making him think that nobody cared. The delicate lips burnt and charred, his soft mouth an angry red and pink, reminded Itachi of when he pulled him from the oven, the soft ivory of his back angry pinkish red with heat. Itachi couldn't show him again, couldn't see the burns, couldn't picture what would have happened if he had stopped for anything on the way home that night.

"_Sorry Little Brother, not this time."_

* * *

He had killed them all, every last one, except Sasuke. His only regret was that he would need to leave now. His dear little brother would grow without him, would become a man, and a shinobi without his guidance, he was near tears. Then Sasuke showed up, scared, shaking, Itachi wanted to embrace him, let him know why, tell him it would be okay, assure the precious one he saw as a son understood, that he knew why this had happened. Instead he betrayed him, the only one who loved him, and the boy knew it, he terrorized him with images, giving him focus. And he left.

"_Hate me, Little One."_

* * *

Sasuke had a good life, he had admiring fans, Sakura seemed to truly love him, Naruto was like a younger brother, he missed Itachi some days, then scolded himself for his foolishness. Who would miss a murderer. He was filled with rage, rage brought on by betrayal, he couldn't let anybody near, they scared him, his Father's emotional abuse, not so much the physical was a problem, his mother's cold eyes lighting upon him made him feel warm, he remembered loving her, and her being kind to him, giving him little bits to eat when he wanted a snack, feeding him, helping him when he was hurt. Why had Itachi killed her? Nobody could love him, he knew well. And if he cared enough for someone, they would do something bad, they would hurt him. To be fair, he was getting better, until Orochimaru. The Curse mark hurt, he suffered from headaches even after it was sealed, it made him irrational, waspish, he was surlier than usual, and not for the usual reasons. He was prepared to stick it out, by now he knew that no matter what Naruto wouldn't abandon him, Kakashi would be there, and Sakura, she wouldn't leave even if he wanted her to. Until Sakon hit him.

Sasuke was raised to respect violence. If Sakon could hit him, and do it as a punishment, not even during a fight, that meant he was stronger, and Sasuke was always supposed to listen to the stronger ones. He broke.

* * *

Itachi sat in the castle, on the throne, humming 'Kagome Kagome' quietly to himself; it had always been one of Sasuke's favorites as a child, no matter how macabre it was. Sasuke would be here to kill him soon. He didn't think that Sasuke could get worse, he only hoped that the boy never learned the truth, it would make him worse. For now, perhaps his death would aide his dear younger brother's recovery, Sasuke was unstable, not doomed. And besides he had made it worse. He had forced Sasuke to relive every moment over and over with false reasoning. If he had been able to stay, or take Sasuke with him, the boy wouldn't have broken as he did. And then, thinking was unnecessary, his brother has arrived.

* * *

In hindsight, letting his brother kill him, was a bad idea, Itachi was a focus, his center, his world whether he realized it or not. Hopefully Sasuke would simply be sad, selfishly he hoped a bit for depression, just for validation. Not permanent, but perhaps a touch of melancholy. He hoped the boy never learned the truth.

* * *

Sasuke is broken. His Aunt Chiyo was a baker, and now she is dead, His father was abusive, and he is dead, his mother with her indecipherable gaze, she was dead. His brother who loved him above all else, loved him, and now he was dead, by Sasuke's hand. His loving brother, dead. His brother was dead, his brother was dead his brother was dead his brother was dead his brother was dead his brother was dead his brother was dead his brother was dead hisbortherwasdeadhisbrotherw asdeadhisbrotherwasdeadhisbr otherwasdeadhisbrotherwasdea dhisbrotherwasdeadhisbrother wasdeadhisbrotherwasdeadhisb rotherwasdeadhisbrotherwasde ad.

He was dead too.

END

* * *

*Assume that there was more than one time this happens, I just didn't document it. hence why Sasuke isn't permitted in the kitchen without Itachi.

P.S. Sasuke isn't dead literally at the end, but he may as well be, his decline gets horrible once he realizes his brother was innocent...doesn't it?

Sorry bout that bit of madness! But hey. The mind does odd things.


End file.
